Training.

My eyes are focused on a spot on the far wall as my muscles contract on command. The weight is heavy and I’m trembling a bit under it. But not enough to see.

I don’t move my eyes as I respond to him.

“Make it harder.”

He adjusts the weight and there is fire in my arms. My eyes reveal their whites and I push through. Through. And through. There is only me and this fucking weight. And I am going to move it.

“That’s awesome.” he says.

And he means it. Because he knows I don’t take kindly to having any sort of smoke or sunshine blown up my ass.

On Monday he asked me to do pushups on the stability ball. Not with my feet on the stability ball, but with my hands on the stability ball. I don’t know what you know about pushups and stability balls but this is insanely hard. Not only are you squeezing the sides of the ball and balancing your upper body on it all at the same time, but you are also asking your body to do a pushup under these conditions?

It looked like madness.

And I don’t really flinch at much.

“Ok” I said.

And I got down and positioned myself over that ball and started a pushup.

I was on the ground before I knew it. Face first.

“Shit.”

“No, that’s ok. I can’t believe the faith you have in yourself. That’s really amazing.”

“I fell.”

“I know. Now do it from your knees.”

I groaned audibly. “But it’s so sissy to do it from the knees. Even with the ball.” I complained.

He assured me that it would still be hard. And, believe me, it was.

I am starting to know him inside and out. Today he picks up some very, very light dumbbells and I just looked at him and said, “This is going to really hurt me, isn’t it?”

It did.

When I leave him I feel like gumby. When I’m with him I make myself do things I was not sure I could actually do. When I do them I want to do more. I want to try more. To risk more. And ask more of myself.

He is a goofy kid from my part of the country but he is smart as a whip and sly as a fox. He knows exactly what he’s doing and you’d better believe it. I am cutting things out of my life left and right in order to be able to continue to pay for this and it is mostly because he makes me want to get out of bed in the morning.

And he makes me want to suffer and dig deep. And in the depths of that pain I am finding a very rare peace.